The original dojo rule of ‘The Karate Kid’ movies was broken by ‘Cobra Kai season 4 - for the better. The entirety of Cobra Kai season 4 built to the All Valley Under 18 Karate Tournament, which spanned the final two season 4 episodes, "The Fall" and "The Rise." The stakes for the All Valley were also the highest they've ever been for the senseis and students of Cobra Kai, Miyagi-Do, and Eagle Fang. According to the agreement Johnny Lawrence (William Zabka) and Daniel LaRusso (Ralph Macchio) made with John Kreese (Martin Kove) at the end of Cobra Kai season 3, the losing dojo at the All Valley has to shut down for good.
The Karate Kid established two dojos, Cobra Kai and Miyagi-Do, the latter of which was basically invented by Mr. Miyagi (Noriyuki "Pat" Morita) to justify his lone student, Daniel's, entry into the 1984 All Valley tournament. Still, the next two Karate Kid movies adhered to the concept of the two dojos, with Cobra Kai making a comeback to plague LaRusso in The Karate Kid Part III. But according to the unofficial rules of The Karate Kid movies, a student could either learn Cobra Kai's "way of the fist" and become a proponent of striking first and offering "no mercy" to opponents, or learn Miyagi-Do's system of self-defense and spirituality, as Daniel did. In Cobra Kai season 1, Daniel restarted Miyagi-Do to counteract Johnny's rebooted Cobra Kai. By Cobra Kai season 3, Sensei Lawrence had left Cobra Kai and started up Eagle Fang Karate, which is a modified version of Cobra Kai that leaves room for showing mercy.
‘Cobra Kai’ season 4 completely shatters the binary paradigm that has held since ‘The Karate Kid’ and the franchise is better for it.
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